Dharamsala, September 10 – A Tibetan monk has succumbed to injuries sustained from torture in prison, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) said on its website. A monk of Drepung monastery, Phuntsok Lhundup, 32, (lay name: Kalden) was from village No.8, Tso-doe Township, Phenpo Lhundup County, Lhasa Municipality City, “Tibet Autonomous Region” (“TAR”). No exact time of his death was available. However, the centre says he had died last month.

Phuntsok was among 300 monks from his monastery who initiated a protest march to Lhasa on March 10 last year, four days before the mass protests in the Tibetan capital Lhasa and the ensuing crackdown. The monks were stopped on the way and arrested by Chinese security forces.

Samdup was arrested along with the other monks of Drepung monastery on March 10 last year. Even his family has no information about him.

There was no information on Phuntsok’s whereabouts since his arrest, according to the centre. “No one, including his relatives and monks from Drepung Monastery, were informed of his detention in Lhasa.”

Citing several sources, the centre added that he died in a detention centre in mid-August 2009, due to prolonged period of confinement, torture and maltreatment. His body was handed over to a distant relative in Lhasa City in mid-Aug 2009. Samdup, his elder brother from the same Monastery, was also arrested that day and his whereabouts remain unknown.